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Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin diesEnvoy: Ruler buried in Saudi Arabia, where he lived in exile
(CNN) -- Former Ugandan military ruler Idi Amin, blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths in the 1970s, has died in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, according to medical officials. Ugandan officials say Amin was 80, though his birth year is also listed as 1925. Amin, who had lived for years in exile in the port city of Jeddah, had been on life support since July 18, after slipping into a coma. A family member said Amin was to be buried Saturday afternoon in Saudi Arabia, Ugandan journalist Odoobo Bichachi told CNN. Uganda's ambassador to the United States, Edith Ssempala, said she believed the burial had taken place. "Ugandans and the Uganda government are kind of relieved," Ssempala told CNN. "But on the other hand, we do sympathize with the family. Idi Amin had children. He had wives. They're hurting, obviously." Ssempala denied charges from some of Amin's relatives that the Ugandan government had denied their request to bury the dictator in Uganda. "He could have been buried in Uganda," she said. "It's just when Muslims die, they are buried immediately. There's just no way he could have been brought to Uganda in time." Kibirige told CNN that Amin's family had asked Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to allow him to return home to Uganda to die. But according to his relatives, the Ugandan government said he would face arrest. Amin was overweight and had suffered from hypertension and fatigue in recent years, said David Kibirige, a senior reporter for the Ugandan newspaper The Monitor. Later, hospital staff said he suffered kidney failure. He died at 8:20 a.m. Saturday [1:20 a.m. EDT] at King Faisal Specialist Hospital, The Associated Press quoted one unnamed official as saying. A onetime heavyweight boxing champ and soldier in the British colonial army, Amin seized power in a military coup January 25, 1971, overthrowing President Milton Obote while he was abroad. (Amin profile) Amin's rule was marked by extreme nationalism. He ordered the persecution of several Ugandan tribal groups and kicked all Asians out of the country in 1972, an action blamed for the collapse of the country's economy. The dictator was personally involved in the 1976 Palestinian hijacking of a French airliner to Entebbe. According to the CIA World Factbook, during his eight years in power, Amin's "dictatorial regime" was "responsible for the deaths of some 300,000 opponents." Human rights groups say that figure is much higher, arguing that as many as 500,000 people were killed or simply disappeared under his rule. Exiles said he kept severed heads in his refrigerator, fed corpses to crocodiles and had one of his wives dismembered. He was also accused of cannibalism. Rose, fell through military coups
Amin was forced from power in 1979 by a combined force of Ugandan exiles and the Tanzanian army. He fled to Libya, then Iraq and finally Saudi Arabia, where he was allowed to settle provided that he stay out of politics. A convert to Islam, Amin had spent the past decade living with his four wives in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi authorities granted him a government stipend. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a Ugandan-Asian newspaper columnist whose family was among those Amin expelled, said the Saudis should have brought him to justice. "I think it is a disgrace that Saudi Arabia gave him the kind of life they did, and the excuse is he was a Muslim. They should have delivered him into the hands of international justice, and they never did," she told Sky News television. "And for the families of all those victims, black African families, this is going to be something they'll never forgive." Ssempala said history would remember Amin "as he should be remembered: a brutal, vicious, dictatorial leader of Uganda. "I don't think he has ever shown any remorse," she said. "He has even been proud of that. "He knew he was killing people," she added. "He seemed even to be enjoying it. He killed even his own wife. This is something that quite frankly is difficult to understand, that a human being can have no heart." Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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"Ugandans and the Uganda government are kind of relieved. But on the other hand, we do sympathize with the family."
